Stupendous Change Leadership Series: Wonder Springs Oikos
07/March/2007 08:56 Filed in: Weekly Column
7 March 2007; Volume 9, Issue 10
PDF copy
An email I got last week asked what I needed to be able to take this ministry to the next level. My first response was everything. This remains quite true, but I realize in the world of talking points and spin, everything must have an agenda. Therefore, the Wonder Springs dwelling place (oikos) must be defined in the essence of George Mueller, Hudson Taylor and Francis Schaeffer, who asked God to provide their needs and that God would build the ministry well beyond what they could at the time envision.
Since society has continued to evolve into more random noise and chaos since Schaeffer’s death in 1984, I realize I must be a little more specific. So here is the proposal, I want everyone to move to Wonder Springs. That move will include all that may ever read this. Contrary to your wishful thinking, stupendous change events are part of this life. Until such time as the Lord returns, or the Rapture happens, it would be a good thing for us all to amend our earthly ways and focus upon a place where God’s absolutes, not evolutionary relativism, rule. That place is Wonder Springs.
In the close of his book “How Should We Then Live,” Schaeffer quotes the prophet Ezekiel, specifically Chapter 33, verses 1-11 and 19, which follow. As part of the canon of scripture the admonition given here applies to all mankind. Just because you do not wish to be a prophet in the Biblical sense, does not mean that God does not hold you responsible for this implementation. Human beings understand law quite well, it is grace with which we have a problem, except in the context of personal slothfulness.
Again the word of the LORD came to me, saying, “Son of man, speak to the children of your people, and say to them: ‘When I bring the sword upon a land, and the people of the land take a man from their territory and make him their watchman, when he sees the sword coming upon the land, if he blows the trumpet and warns the people, then whoever hears the sound of the trumpet and does not take warning, if the sword comes and takes him away, his blood shall be on his own head. He heard the sound of the trumpet, but did not take warning; his blood shall be upon himself. But he who takes warning will save his life. But if the watchman sees the sword coming and does not blow the trumpet, and the people are not warned, and the sword comes and takes any person from among them, he is taken away in his iniquity; but his blood I will require at the watchman’s hand.’
“So you, son of man: I have made you a watchman for the house of Israel; therefore you shall hear a word from My mouth and warn them for Me. When I say to the wicked, “O wicked man, you shall surely die!’ and you do not speak to warn the wicked from his way, that wicked man shall die in his iniquity; but his blood I will require at your hand. Nevertheless if you warn the wicked to turn from his way, and he does not turn from his way, he shall die in his iniquity; but you have delivered your soul.
“Therefore you, O son of man, say to the house of Israel: “Thus you say, ‘If our transgressions and our sins lie upon us, and we pine away in them, how can we then live?” ’ Say to them: “As I live,’ says the Lord GOD, ‘I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his way and live. Turn, turn from your evil ways! For why should you die, O house of Israel?’ . . .
“But when the wicked turns from his wickedness and does what is lawful and right, he shall live because of it.”
Every Christian is called to be the watchman for the house of Israel, or the church. That meaning includes into the house, and from the house into the world. You can spin that as non loving if you would like, but realize it is spin none the less, and as a watchman, once you read these words you are accountable not only to you and yours, but to those to whom you have a personal relationship.
In Wonder Springs you can live in a 12x14 foot tent, or a house with a 12x14 foot entry hall. You get what you pay for, and what you can afford. I want everyone to move to Wonder Springs because as I am beginning to realize through this series, your problems relating to real world stupendous change really comes down to what you hold valuable, not to what you need. If God takes care of the flowers of the field and the sparrows, how much more will He not take care of you?
Business leaders and church pastors, I want you to move your enterprises to Wonder Springs. Workers I want you to move your job and your families to Wonder Springs. Personally I would like to see Wonder Springs grow well beyond the largest natural city that you can conceive and I want you there. However this Wonder Springs, is not quite an indicative, like heaven. Wonder Springs is an imperative that you are able to build beyond the life of stupendous change.
There are four duties to live and work in Wonder Springs. Those four are: Wonder, Truth, Love, and Security. Lest you think I came up with these on my own you are mistaken. I have basically adapted these four Wonder Springs attributes from the apologetics of Ravi Zacharias, who seems to have adapted them from C. K. Chesteron. At the Wonder Springs Chronicle website we have posted two wonder based audio files from Ravi, and a link to chapter 4 of Chesteron’s book Orthodoxy, The Ethics of Elfland.
The first requirement to enter Wonder Springs is that you will be tested, just as you shall enter the Kingdom of God. You must arrive at Wonder Springs like a little child. Matthew 18, Mark 10, and Luke 18 all speak to the truth that to enter the Kingdom of God you must enter as a little child. That does not mean you must be childish, the contrary is most definitely true. To be childlike is to understand you are a child of God, not a god.
Childlike is to mean you live humbly in a world of old giants and really your only true friend is your worn and dirty little bear. Have you ever wondered why the first reality that we bond with is a stuffed animal, not mama and papa, or our siblings? We are digressing to make a point. Perhaps a more mature child like question would be to wonder why the universe appears so large, I wonder what is the purpose of that expanse of space? The true metaphysical law of why the sun rises and sets every day, that’s a real question? Have you lost your sense of wonder? Then you seriously must move to Wonder Springs.
Once through the gates of Wonder Springs proper, you will begin to understand that the foundations of every oikos (dwelling) is truth, Biblical truth. The Biblical truth begins and ends on the foundation of what Jesus Christ did in time, space, and matter. In Wonder Springs, should you decide that you might want to move from your present circumstances in the stupendous change world around, you must leave your other foundational baggage at the gate of Wonder Springs, where it shall be distributed to those who choose to remain eternally poor. For the riches that spring from God’s foundational provision, to rescue fallen mankind from our total depravity, is the one an only thing you can and will take from Wonder Springs to eternity.
Upon that solid rock foundation of truth, you now have the opportunity to begin to build your dwelling place within the concepts of the imperative. As we have said before the Biblical imperative is that you will all have your oikos and that will include a fig tree. I wonder if that fig tree has something to do with real figs, or maybe it is just a metaphor for all types of fruit? I would like an orchard of cherries, and apricots, perhaps some grapes and apples, and lemons for lemonade. Lemonade to share with friends on a warm, not hot, but sunny afternoon, sitting in the shade, learning, and conversing about the wonder of it all.
In the highly evolved world of the 21st century earth, there is really no reason for love. So I guess the wonder question is, “So why do you so love to live there?” That answer really leads us to the next requirement, that being security, but we are not ready to leave love yet.
Everyone seems to believe that God is love, I can’t argue with that. The true aspect of that love of God however, is that it must be given away freely, to truly find personal self worth and love. That’s a pretty heavy wonder also. To the extent I give away myself as love, is the measure to which it will be returned to me.
Contrary to our evolving world where life is defined without absolutes, if you should choose to move to Wonder Springs, love does not only have to be given away, it has to be received. In the world of no absolutes, love is reduced to a sexual hooking up and misses the point and reality of love entirely. Love is not relationship, love is friends and family.
God loves me, when I was a child my bear loved me, then my dog loved me, then nobody loves me unconditionally. My parents said they loved me, but for some reason, it took a real long time to know for sure. It’s fine for the preacher to say that God loves me and has a wonderful plan for my life, but he always seems too busy to stop over and share a glass of lemonade. In Wonder Springs you make time to love on other people, not just talk to them about love. The imperative of Wonder Springs that your neighbors are really your neighbors and your family is really your family. How rad and wonderful is that idea.
That brings us to the forth aspect of Wonder Springs, security. We truly love the world so much that we try to find our security there, completely in the temporal, hoping someday to retire, or hoping that retirement will be long enough to enjoy. It seems that we paid for it with all our youth and enthusiasm, it would be a pity if we were now too old to truly live life.
The one constant regret, in the lives of virtually every human being that walks this culture of material plenty, is that they wish that when they were younger they took more risks. Why didn’t they take more risks, the answer is simple, security. Our world evolved by definition without security other than the uniformity of time. How can you find security in an actual world where we truly know that uniformity is truly not a truth, but a fanciful illusion or lie? Stupendous change happens, if it at this moment does not appear stupendous, normal change is still the only constant, outside the security of the unchanging God.
There is really no wonder why we don’t have the security we all seek. We have not security, because we believe we need to understand security, to control security, to be secure. That is not childlike faith, that is brainwashing. As they say on the risky mission field, “You are immortal until such time as God is through with you.”
We did not receive our insecurity from God, we did not receive our insecurity from our bear, or our dog, perhaps our first cat gave us the clue of the real world to come, but even a purring cat likes you to understand that true security is not just an illusion. However, true security is not available in this world outside your residence in Wonder Springs. It is that simple and that complex.
For it is only in Wonder Springs that Wonder, Truth, Love, and Security exist in this world. Just like in the natural world, all that surrounds Wonder Springs is Death Valley. The cool thing about the Wonder Springs defined here is that it is much a state of mind as it is an actual place. However, to paraphrase the Bible, where your heart is, there will be where you are invested. If all your investments truly are in Death Valley, perhaps it is time to move some, if not all of them to Wonder Springs.
All I get out of this Wonder Springs development is a modest house and a small orchard, and so do you. However, that modest oikos dwelling is surrounded by an eternity of wonder which begins to spring when you take that first step, to travel beyond that temporal illusion of physical security, into a world that wonder springs from all change, even stupendous change. I wonder why that happened? What can I learn from this, to be a more mature child of God?
Moving to your Wonder Springs Oikos is that simple and that difficult. All I ask is that you join me so that we might all feel secure in being the Watchmen of “how we should live.” We live because wonder springs from the death of Jesus Christ two thousand years ago, that is truly the only security you need now, and it is the only gift you can take with you into eternity. So together let us begin to build the transitional Wonder Springs oikos. Not only for us, but for those who may follow our trail in this Death Valley life.
PDF copy
An email I got last week asked what I needed to be able to take this ministry to the next level. My first response was everything. This remains quite true, but I realize in the world of talking points and spin, everything must have an agenda. Therefore, the Wonder Springs dwelling place (oikos) must be defined in the essence of George Mueller, Hudson Taylor and Francis Schaeffer, who asked God to provide their needs and that God would build the ministry well beyond what they could at the time envision.
Since society has continued to evolve into more random noise and chaos since Schaeffer’s death in 1984, I realize I must be a little more specific. So here is the proposal, I want everyone to move to Wonder Springs. That move will include all that may ever read this. Contrary to your wishful thinking, stupendous change events are part of this life. Until such time as the Lord returns, or the Rapture happens, it would be a good thing for us all to amend our earthly ways and focus upon a place where God’s absolutes, not evolutionary relativism, rule. That place is Wonder Springs.
In the close of his book “How Should We Then Live,” Schaeffer quotes the prophet Ezekiel, specifically Chapter 33, verses 1-11 and 19, which follow. As part of the canon of scripture the admonition given here applies to all mankind. Just because you do not wish to be a prophet in the Biblical sense, does not mean that God does not hold you responsible for this implementation. Human beings understand law quite well, it is grace with which we have a problem, except in the context of personal slothfulness.
Again the word of the LORD came to me, saying, “Son of man, speak to the children of your people, and say to them: ‘When I bring the sword upon a land, and the people of the land take a man from their territory and make him their watchman, when he sees the sword coming upon the land, if he blows the trumpet and warns the people, then whoever hears the sound of the trumpet and does not take warning, if the sword comes and takes him away, his blood shall be on his own head. He heard the sound of the trumpet, but did not take warning; his blood shall be upon himself. But he who takes warning will save his life. But if the watchman sees the sword coming and does not blow the trumpet, and the people are not warned, and the sword comes and takes any person from among them, he is taken away in his iniquity; but his blood I will require at the watchman’s hand.’
“So you, son of man: I have made you a watchman for the house of Israel; therefore you shall hear a word from My mouth and warn them for Me. When I say to the wicked, “O wicked man, you shall surely die!’ and you do not speak to warn the wicked from his way, that wicked man shall die in his iniquity; but his blood I will require at your hand. Nevertheless if you warn the wicked to turn from his way, and he does not turn from his way, he shall die in his iniquity; but you have delivered your soul.
“Therefore you, O son of man, say to the house of Israel: “Thus you say, ‘If our transgressions and our sins lie upon us, and we pine away in them, how can we then live?” ’ Say to them: “As I live,’ says the Lord GOD, ‘I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his way and live. Turn, turn from your evil ways! For why should you die, O house of Israel?’ . . .
“But when the wicked turns from his wickedness and does what is lawful and right, he shall live because of it.”
Every Christian is called to be the watchman for the house of Israel, or the church. That meaning includes into the house, and from the house into the world. You can spin that as non loving if you would like, but realize it is spin none the less, and as a watchman, once you read these words you are accountable not only to you and yours, but to those to whom you have a personal relationship.
In Wonder Springs you can live in a 12x14 foot tent, or a house with a 12x14 foot entry hall. You get what you pay for, and what you can afford. I want everyone to move to Wonder Springs because as I am beginning to realize through this series, your problems relating to real world stupendous change really comes down to what you hold valuable, not to what you need. If God takes care of the flowers of the field and the sparrows, how much more will He not take care of you?
Business leaders and church pastors, I want you to move your enterprises to Wonder Springs. Workers I want you to move your job and your families to Wonder Springs. Personally I would like to see Wonder Springs grow well beyond the largest natural city that you can conceive and I want you there. However this Wonder Springs, is not quite an indicative, like heaven. Wonder Springs is an imperative that you are able to build beyond the life of stupendous change.
There are four duties to live and work in Wonder Springs. Those four are: Wonder, Truth, Love, and Security. Lest you think I came up with these on my own you are mistaken. I have basically adapted these four Wonder Springs attributes from the apologetics of Ravi Zacharias, who seems to have adapted them from C. K. Chesteron. At the Wonder Springs Chronicle website we have posted two wonder based audio files from Ravi, and a link to chapter 4 of Chesteron’s book Orthodoxy, The Ethics of Elfland.
The first requirement to enter Wonder Springs is that you will be tested, just as you shall enter the Kingdom of God. You must arrive at Wonder Springs like a little child. Matthew 18, Mark 10, and Luke 18 all speak to the truth that to enter the Kingdom of God you must enter as a little child. That does not mean you must be childish, the contrary is most definitely true. To be childlike is to understand you are a child of God, not a god.
Childlike is to mean you live humbly in a world of old giants and really your only true friend is your worn and dirty little bear. Have you ever wondered why the first reality that we bond with is a stuffed animal, not mama and papa, or our siblings? We are digressing to make a point. Perhaps a more mature child like question would be to wonder why the universe appears so large, I wonder what is the purpose of that expanse of space? The true metaphysical law of why the sun rises and sets every day, that’s a real question? Have you lost your sense of wonder? Then you seriously must move to Wonder Springs.
Once through the gates of Wonder Springs proper, you will begin to understand that the foundations of every oikos (dwelling) is truth, Biblical truth. The Biblical truth begins and ends on the foundation of what Jesus Christ did in time, space, and matter. In Wonder Springs, should you decide that you might want to move from your present circumstances in the stupendous change world around, you must leave your other foundational baggage at the gate of Wonder Springs, where it shall be distributed to those who choose to remain eternally poor. For the riches that spring from God’s foundational provision, to rescue fallen mankind from our total depravity, is the one an only thing you can and will take from Wonder Springs to eternity.
Upon that solid rock foundation of truth, you now have the opportunity to begin to build your dwelling place within the concepts of the imperative. As we have said before the Biblical imperative is that you will all have your oikos and that will include a fig tree. I wonder if that fig tree has something to do with real figs, or maybe it is just a metaphor for all types of fruit? I would like an orchard of cherries, and apricots, perhaps some grapes and apples, and lemons for lemonade. Lemonade to share with friends on a warm, not hot, but sunny afternoon, sitting in the shade, learning, and conversing about the wonder of it all.
In the highly evolved world of the 21st century earth, there is really no reason for love. So I guess the wonder question is, “So why do you so love to live there?” That answer really leads us to the next requirement, that being security, but we are not ready to leave love yet.
Everyone seems to believe that God is love, I can’t argue with that. The true aspect of that love of God however, is that it must be given away freely, to truly find personal self worth and love. That’s a pretty heavy wonder also. To the extent I give away myself as love, is the measure to which it will be returned to me.
Contrary to our evolving world where life is defined without absolutes, if you should choose to move to Wonder Springs, love does not only have to be given away, it has to be received. In the world of no absolutes, love is reduced to a sexual hooking up and misses the point and reality of love entirely. Love is not relationship, love is friends and family.
God loves me, when I was a child my bear loved me, then my dog loved me, then nobody loves me unconditionally. My parents said they loved me, but for some reason, it took a real long time to know for sure. It’s fine for the preacher to say that God loves me and has a wonderful plan for my life, but he always seems too busy to stop over and share a glass of lemonade. In Wonder Springs you make time to love on other people, not just talk to them about love. The imperative of Wonder Springs that your neighbors are really your neighbors and your family is really your family. How rad and wonderful is that idea.
That brings us to the forth aspect of Wonder Springs, security. We truly love the world so much that we try to find our security there, completely in the temporal, hoping someday to retire, or hoping that retirement will be long enough to enjoy. It seems that we paid for it with all our youth and enthusiasm, it would be a pity if we were now too old to truly live life.
The one constant regret, in the lives of virtually every human being that walks this culture of material plenty, is that they wish that when they were younger they took more risks. Why didn’t they take more risks, the answer is simple, security. Our world evolved by definition without security other than the uniformity of time. How can you find security in an actual world where we truly know that uniformity is truly not a truth, but a fanciful illusion or lie? Stupendous change happens, if it at this moment does not appear stupendous, normal change is still the only constant, outside the security of the unchanging God.
There is really no wonder why we don’t have the security we all seek. We have not security, because we believe we need to understand security, to control security, to be secure. That is not childlike faith, that is brainwashing. As they say on the risky mission field, “You are immortal until such time as God is through with you.”
We did not receive our insecurity from God, we did not receive our insecurity from our bear, or our dog, perhaps our first cat gave us the clue of the real world to come, but even a purring cat likes you to understand that true security is not just an illusion. However, true security is not available in this world outside your residence in Wonder Springs. It is that simple and that complex.
For it is only in Wonder Springs that Wonder, Truth, Love, and Security exist in this world. Just like in the natural world, all that surrounds Wonder Springs is Death Valley. The cool thing about the Wonder Springs defined here is that it is much a state of mind as it is an actual place. However, to paraphrase the Bible, where your heart is, there will be where you are invested. If all your investments truly are in Death Valley, perhaps it is time to move some, if not all of them to Wonder Springs.
All I get out of this Wonder Springs development is a modest house and a small orchard, and so do you. However, that modest oikos dwelling is surrounded by an eternity of wonder which begins to spring when you take that first step, to travel beyond that temporal illusion of physical security, into a world that wonder springs from all change, even stupendous change. I wonder why that happened? What can I learn from this, to be a more mature child of God?
Moving to your Wonder Springs Oikos is that simple and that difficult. All I ask is that you join me so that we might all feel secure in being the Watchmen of “how we should live.” We live because wonder springs from the death of Jesus Christ two thousand years ago, that is truly the only security you need now, and it is the only gift you can take with you into eternity. So together let us begin to build the transitional Wonder Springs oikos. Not only for us, but for those who may follow our trail in this Death Valley life.